Audio pioneers of Star Wars sue Apple over speaker tech

Lawsuit says iPhones, iMacs use tech patented by Lucas-founded THX.

THX Ltd., the audio technology company founded by Star Wars creator George Lucas, has filed a lawsuit saying that Apple's iPhones, iMacs, and iPads all infringe a patent it owns that covers "narrow-profile speakers."

The three-page lawsuit [PDF], filed in San Jose federal court, is slim on details. It simply says that most Apple products "incorporate narrow-profile speaker units that output sound through a duct or aperture having a narrow dimension." The patent at issue was granted in 2008.

Like most tech companies, Apple gets sued for patent infringement quite regularly. Most of those suits come from "patent trolls" that just sue over patents, while others are a result of the corporate smartphone patent wars that Apple had a hand in starting a few years ago.

The THX lawsuit stands out, having been brought by an operating company with a well-known brand name which has never filed a patent lawsuit before. THX is asking for a "reasonable royalty," as well as lost profits, which are typical demands in a patent case.

THX Ltd. was founded by George Lucas in 1983, after he was disappointed by the sound quality in theaters that showed the second Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back. Lucas hired audio scientist Tomlinson Holman to bring a higher quality of sound into cinemas, and enforced audio standards that allowed movie theaters to become THX "certified." The company's launch coincided with the third Star Wars movie, Return of the Jedi.

The company was originally created as a subsidiary of Lucasfilm, and was spun off in 2002. THX is based in San Rafael, California, about 20 miles north of Lucasfilm's headquarters in San Francisco. The audio company was named after Lucas' first film, THX-1138.

Both THX and Apple representatives declined to respond to an inquiry about the lawsuit by Bloomberg News.

Apple: Hey Mr. Holman, wanna come work for us?TH: Sure, what do you need?Apple: Better sound for our iPhones using technology you're familiar withTH: I could, but it's patentedApple: You do know who we are right? Copy, steal, doesn't matter. We'll put an "i" in front of it, paint it white, pay someone to approve an obtuse patent, and litigate!

If you've never seen THX 1138, you owe it to yourself. There's an industrial accident scene, viewed on video monitors only, that freaks me out today. Somewhat dated, as it should be given it's creation date, but George had it then as today. Don't rent it, buy it, and wear it out.

I wonder if there's a specific beef with Apple speakers of this type or if they're just hitting a big visible player first as some sort of legal strategy. It's not like this kind of speaker is super rare.

If you've never seen THX 1138, you owe it to yourself. There's an industrial accident scene, viewed on video monitors only, that freaks me out today. Somewhat dated, as it should be given it's creation date, but George had it then as today. Don't rent it, buy it, and wear it out.

Like the original Star Wars trilogy, THX-1138 has been extensively revised and altered, and now contains many new ILM digitally-altered and digitally-augmented shots.

And, like the Star Wars movies, it's totally unavailable in its original state; all home-video versions contain this newly-altered version (referred to as the "Director's Cut"), including DVD and Blu-Ray versions. (As with the post-"Special Edition" Star Wars changes, there's not the slightest hint in the closing credits that anything's been changed: it's the original closing credits.)

Independent of any formal/abstract objections one might have (it's "dishonest," "I want the original" etc.) the changes are actually very well done and do enhance the story and fit into the early-'Seventies aesthetic vibe of the movie -- they aren't nearly as obtrusive as the Star Wars changes (and there's no "Han shot first" moment where the actual events are changed). I'd still like to see and own the original, because it's an important movie and (like John Carpenter's Dark Star) it's all about how to do good-looking sci-fi on a measly budget in a totally analog filmmaking environment.

This page exhaustively details the differences between the original movie and the new version:

If you've never seen THX 1138, you owe it to yourself. There's an industrial accident scene, viewed on video monitors only, that freaks me out today. Somewhat dated, as it should be given it's creation date, but George had it then as today. Don't rent it, buy it, and wear it out.

Original or 2004 directors cut? As always with a Lucas film skip the re-make.

If you've never seen THX 1138, you owe it to yourself. There's an industrial accident scene, viewed on video monitors only, that freaks me out today. Somewhat dated, as it should be given it's creation date, but George had it then as today. Don't rent it, buy it, and wear it out.

Like the original Star Wars trilogy, THX-1138 has been extensively revised and altered, and now contains many new ILM digitally-altered and digitally-augmented shots.

And, like the Star Wars movies, it's totally unavailable in its original state; all home-video versions contain this newly-altered version (referred to as the "Director's Cut"), including DVD and Blu-Ray versions. (As with the post-"Special Edition" Star Wars changes, there's not the slightest hint in the closing credits that anything's been changed: it's the original closing credits.)

Independent of any formal/abstract objections one might have (it's "dishonest," "I want the original" etc.) the changes are actually very well done and do enhance the story and fit into the early-'Seventies aesthetic vibe of the movie -- they aren't nearly as obtrusive as the Star Wars changes (and there's no "Han shot first" moment where the actual events are changed). I'd still like to see and own the original, because it's an important movie and (like John Carpenter's Dark Star) it's all about how to do good-looking sci-fi on a measly budget in a totally analog filmmaking environment.

[a href=http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=541751]This page[/i] exhaustively details the differences between the original movie and the new version.

Laserdisc to the rescue! I still watch my original SW trilogy discs, and many other classics have been preserved thanks to the dead media.

If you've never seen THX 1138, you owe it to yourself. There's an industrial accident scene, viewed on video monitors only, that freaks me out today. Somewhat dated, as it should be given it's creation date, but George had it then as today. Don't rent it, buy it, and wear it out.

Like the original Star Wars trilogy, THX-1138 has been extensively revised and altered, and now contains many new ILM digitally-altered and digitally-augmented shots.

And, like the Star Wars movies, it's totally unavailable in its original state; all home-video versions contain this newly-altered version (referred to as the "Director's Cut"), including DVD and Blu-Ray versions. (As with the post-"Special Edition" Star Wars changes, there's not the slightest hint in the closing credits that anything's been changed: it's the original closing credits.)

Independent of any formal/abstract objections one might have (it's "dishonest," "I want the original" etc.) the changes are actually very well done and do enhance the story and fit into the early-'Seventies aesthetic vibe of the movie -- they aren't nearly as obtrusive as the Star Wars changes (and there's no "Han shot first" moment where the actual events are changed). I'd still like to see and own the original, because it's an important movie and (like John Carpenter's Dark Star) it's all about how to do good-looking sci-fi on a measly budget in a totally analog filmmaking environment.

[a href=http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=541751]This page[/i] exhaustively details the differences between the original movie and the new version.

Laserdisc to the rescue! I still watch my original SW trilogy discs, and many other classics have been preserved thanks to the dead media.

Right, but the laserdiscs only have NTSC versions, with low-res images and 2-3 pulldown 30i frame rates...and you're not watching the physically cleaned-up negatives that got restored in 1999.

Doesn't just about every cell phone these days use a ducted speaker in order to get half decent sound out of a 3/16" speaker?

Putting a duct (or, more accurately, reflex port) at the back of a speaker is a long-standing aspect of speaker design which uses differential impedance to boost low frequencies alone. Putting one on the front of a wide-range speaker array in order to govern directionality and the integration of multiple drivers is a novel idea.

Most of those suits come from "patent trolls" that just sue over patents, while others are a result of the corporate smartphone patent wars that Apple had a hand in starting a few years ago.

It'd be nice to see Ars go a step beyond these simplistic and sometimes utterly misleading descriptions.

For starters, it would seem that THX Ltd is exactly one of the “patent trolls” that people regularly paint as being in the wrong, by definition. That is, THX lists only “certification” and “licensing” as its operations — it's a Non-Practicing Entity that, without the ability to enforce its IP rights in courts, would have zero revenue. The fact that it has been 60% owned by Creative Labs since 2002 has NOT led to its production of actual products. (And Lucasfilm is keeping control of the name to the extent that they “will retain the right to veto any representatives of the new company and any new technologies it develops. This affectively[sic] means that LucasFilm have the final say on the personnel heading up the new LucasFilm/Creative enterprise and any subsequent licensing arrangements.” (from a report on the merger) It's not Creative's lapdog for some accounting convenience, but a free-standing entity.

One gets the same story, a bit more clearly, from the also-famous Dolby Labs website, where they explicitly say they only license their technologies. In both cases, their only revenues come from other companies' paying for the privilege of the IP.

Joe is quite happy not to suggest that THX or Dolby are one of those slimy trolls, but any definition of a troll would include these firms—except that most everybody thinks of them as great engineering innovators, and so deserving of some special exemption for fame/celebrity. Personally, I think that engineering outfits, especially such as THX and Dolby, deserve our regard and respect for their inventions and other IP. But frankly, they hardly need it: no movie theater is going to risk being shut down for ripping off their technologies. It's actually smaller, and perhaps no less innovative firms that need access to courts over big companies' appropriations of their tech. Yet too many commenters are happy to deny the ones who need protection, while giving the big firms a free pass.

The other misdirection is the “Apple had a hand in starting” the smartphone patent wars thing. That utterly ignores the cellphone patent wars that have been documented as beginning in the 90s—years before Jobs returned to Apple and years before Apple's phone efforts. Those early cellphone wars were not conducted in courts, where standards of fairness might apply, but simply had Motorola refusing to license its GSM patents to prospective competitors. (It appears — Joe might like to report on this? — that Motorola's refusal led to the whole FRAND pledge to prevent consortia from being subjected to anti-competitive regulations.)

Apple's “hand” in starting smartphone patent wars in 2007 was the announcement that it had filed for lots of touch-screen technologies and user interaction methods. As far as I can tell, however, it made no specific threats against any firm in 2007, which is in direct contrast to Motorola refusing (again) to license its GSM patents to an upstart entrant, and to a couple dozen similar patent claims against Apple by Nokia, RIM and others. Claiming that Apple deserves to be called out for starting the wars is quite ridiculous, as the wars were in full tilt by the time Apple actually asserted its first claim against others.

To read this story, one gets the impression that there are three groups involved: Apple, trolls and the Righteous Others. That might be just fine for people who want to reinforce their tribal affiliations, but it's really beneath a site of Ars' ability to do real news and analysis, rather than fanning the flamewars.

Standard stuff based on what? I haven't done my own research, but according to the article, it clearly states that this is the first patent lawsuit that THX has brought forth.

--"The THX lawsuit stands out, having been brought by an operating company with a well-known brand name which has never filed a patent lawsuit before. THX is asking for a "reasonable royalty," as well as lost profits, which are typical demands in a patent case."

If you've never seen THX 1138, you owe it to yourself. There's an industrial accident scene, viewed on video monitors only, that freaks me out today. Somewhat dated, as it should be given it's creation date, but George had it then as today. Don't rent it, buy it, and wear it out.

Like the original Star Wars trilogy, THX-1138 has been extensively revised and altered, and now contains many new ILM digitally-altered and digitally-augmented shots.

And, like the Star Wars movies, it's totally unavailable in its original state; all home-video versions contain this newly-altered version (referred to as the "Director's Cut"), including DVD and Blu-Ray versions. (As with the post-"Special Edition" Star Wars changes, there's not the slightest hint in the closing credits that anything's been changed: it's the original closing credits.)

Independent of any formal/abstract objections one might have (it's "dishonest," "I want the original" etc.) the changes are actually very well done and do enhance the story and fit into the early-'Seventies aesthetic vibe of the movie -- they aren't nearly as obtrusive as the Star Wars changes (and there's no "Han shot first" moment where the actual events are changed). I'd still like to see and own the original, because it's an important movie and (like John Carpenter's Dark Star) it's all about how to do good-looking sci-fi on a measly budget in a totally analog filmmaking environment.

[a href=http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=541751]This page[/i] exhaustively details the differences between the original movie and the new version.

Laserdisc to the rescue! I still watch my original SW trilogy discs, and many other classics have been preserved thanks to the dead media.

Right, but the laserdiscs only have NTSC versions, with low-res images and 2-3 pulldown 30i frame rates...and you're not watching the physically cleaned-up negatives that got restored in 1999.

DVD quality video, uncompressed audio. It's not ideal, but for a movie like THX-1138 it's the only option for getting the unaltered version in a watchable format.

what I can't figure out is why Douglas Adams doesn't seem to attract any hate even though he changed The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pretty much every time it was done in a different format.

Probably because it is by definition a silly universe with no fixed rules and the exact events don't *really* matter--there is no 'canon'. When you have an infinite improbability drive, do you really expect the same improbable events to happen the same way twice? ;-)